


Benediction

by UnderTheFridge



Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Non-Explicit, Pining, Primarch/Astartes relationship, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 21:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderTheFridge/pseuds/UnderTheFridge
Summary: Hathor Maat returns from his secondment to the Third Legion, but the purity seal on his armour isn't the only thing the primarch gave him....(Feels. Feels are the other thing.)





	1. Chapter 1

“You are distracted,” Magnus said.

Hathor Maat didn’t dare to raise his eyes from the floor. It wasn’t a question, or a supposition. It was a bare statement, made all the more pointed by the fact that one hardly needed mind-reading powers to know that it was true. He’d been hopelessly fuzzy ever since he returned from the other fleet with the new oath-paper prominently displayed on his armour. It was embarrassing.

“I’m sorry, my lord.”

“Perhaps I should talk to my brother about your secondment, and see what could be behind this.”

Hathor’s head came up. “You don’t -.” He stopped short, aware that he was about to tell his primarch what to do. “I mean, please don’t trouble yourself. I’ll improve, I promise.”

“You’ll repress it and struggle on? We’re not the Seventh.”

“I am repressing nothing, I assure you.” Hathor said, mainly to keep his mouth occupied – Magnus wasn’t listening to that. “My inattention is unforgivable and I’ll work until I’m proud to represent us again.”

_I can’t remember those dreams no matter how much I try,_ his thoughts said. _My hand goes to this seal more often than I care to notice – he carved it, he pressed it into being and onto my armour and when he was so close…._ That was what Magnus was listening to.

Hathor could feel the careful intrusion inside his skull. It could be best described as like somebody taking hold of a length of tape emerging from a machine – not pulling, not tearing, just grasping sections as they were produced and inspecting them. He made no attempt to block it. Partly due to obedience, and Magnus’s immense power, but also because these things needed to be heard and he could never say them out loud.

_He doesn’t do that with us. He isn’t like some, like you, he won’t with his sons…. I never asked him, never told – never told any of them. They are friendly, a small proportion of them do that, and I turned them down I didn’t know what he would think if he would care, I thought he_ should _care…._

His hair had become lighter in colour while he was there, and he hadn’t noticed at first, and it took a concentrated effort of will to change it back to its usual deep gold. His brothers teased him about wanting to be Third, trying to fit in, about it being a popularity contest over there – maybe he should have dispatched a senior officer, and used biomancy to take his place, and stayed?

_I thought about him so much and every aspect of his sons reminds you like it does with the other legions, but with them it’s not painful. It hurts to be surrounded by that, to have to live with it and brush up against it and only see him only feel him it seeps through in their minds as much as in their bodies…._

He knew that he was mentally rambling, and that Magnus could hear it all.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry, my exalted lord._

The primarch didn’t respond.

_I’ve had friends and companions among my brothers and once or twice we loved – names, places, wordless devotions of skin –but I thought I wasn’t much involved with all that but with him… I want…need…._

It fell from words to sensations then, and he couldn’t shield any of it, but he could stop his physical face from colouring and keep his body still rather than turning and running.

Magnus’s hand was on his shoulder in some form or other and eyes that never settled on one colour were peering into his own.

“You are free to go, Hathor.” The words might have been spoken, or perhaps not. The absence of scrutiny left him with his head full of the things he’d revealed, making him ashamed.

As he collected enough sanity to bow and walk away, Magnus gave him such hope that it almost choked him with its unintended cruelty.

“I will speak to my brother.”


	2. Chapter 2

Hathor wandered through a forest of crystal trees, looking for a place to lie down. His feet made no sound and the air was cool around his skin, fresh without there being any sort of breeze. Light as dim as dusk or dawn came from an unseen source, or maybe from the trees themselves. Ranks of glassy spires stretched in every direction, each a smooth and solid column rising into a delicate filigree of branches, blues and greens and the occasional sliver of violet.

Purple colours always crept in, no matter how hard he tried to banish them.

He knew it was a useless indulgence to want to lie down, but it always amused him; to lie and rest in the enchanted forest where time stood still and nobody could interrupt him unless he allowed it. He had tried falling asleep once or twice and ended up only blocking out the carefully designed world by closing his eyes – and that featureless darkness wasn’t what he wanted. It was better to enjoy the scenery.

After all, he was already sleeping.

The ground was poorly-defined, and he took a moment to craft velvety blue tussocks of moss with tiny white flowers, a memory from some distant planet where the scenery had soon become soaked with blood – but there was no blood here, no war or death. Psykers couldn’t always control their dreams to such an extent, and it was more useful to those who wished to linger, to analyse and interpret portents of future or present, but he thought he might as well enjoy it. Astartes didn’t rest very much – and rarely strayed into imaginary realms, according what he had heard from his cousins. Neither he nor his brothers liked to imagine a life without dreams, where sleep was a black barrier between one wakeful period and the next. It seemed odd, to admit to being bound to one’s physical body so tightly that even subconscious flights of fancy were impossible.

His subconscious was particularly fanciful at the moment, and he sighed as the violet hues became stronger, seeping into the moss, the flowers turning gold. Sometimes he saw wings, or fires, or sculptures, or caught soft scents and intricate symphonies on the dream’s air. The hints weren’t exactly subtle. But there was nothing he could do.

He moved into a clearing, and moss turned into mounded cushions and vines into filmy drapes of pale blue hanging from the shimmering spindles of the trees. This was a cocoon, in a place where he was already alone. He had found – or rather made – a place to rest.

Someone was already here.

Hathor stopped and stared at the object of his affections, the subject of his dreams, lying on the pillowed floor. Neither of them wore anything besides a simple chiton and Hathor knew that clothing could be banished with a thought. He tried not to think about it, otherwise it would come true too soon.

In any case, this was now a fantasy rather than a simple dream. They were rarely so detailed – or maybe they were, and his fragmented recall upon waking was nothing but a pitiful remnant. It certainly felt that way. The desire that he had confessed so honestly to his primarch surfaced, no longer buried under waking concerns, freedom of action as well as thought. Hathor knelt silently by the side of the supine body, and was followed by dark eyes from his memories.

It seemed he had constructed everything, even those features he could not have known for certain –markings he didn’t see; junctions for power armour belonging to a primarch rather than an ordinary marine; skin never revealed to him overlaying planes of muscle he never touched. He sat and savoured it all with his eyes, and a melancholy feeling in the back of his throat that reminded him that this was a dream. It would no doubt be beautiful while it lasted, but gone by the morning; and morning was in all probability so very close. He was reluctant to touch, in case this would be one of the times where the vision dissolved instantly and he woke frustrated and irritable, but reached out a hand nonetheless.

“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”

Hathor’s fingers stilled an inch from a perfect, exposed thigh.

His vision never talked.

As expertly as he conjured pictures in his mind and made them feel as solid as living flesh, their interaction never extended to any sort of conversation, because he didn’t know what would be said (because he had never asked). He had never taken that fateful step, and dared not imagine doing it. It seemed _disrespectful_ somehow to make a primarch into a talking puppet – even as he dreamed about the basest of things that they could have done together. He always started instead from the first touch, with no script required. Maybe that self-imposed limitation was what had been keeping him sane.

Though it seemed to no longer apply.

“My lord?” he whispered, unbelieving, his words deadened by the dream-atmosphere of the crystal forest. They were definitely still in a forest, despite the upholstery – and he had to be content with that, because he didn’t want to take his attention from the body before him to remodel the surroundings. He found he didn’t care if the world of his mind collapsed around him, and that unnerved him.

“Don’t look so worried, Hathor Maat.” The voice was exactly how he recalled it, despite never being used in this realm before. A casual smirk, and a searching gaze; two other things he hadn’t really seen previously. “What concerns you so much?”

“You… don’t usually speak, my lord.”

“Really? Would you prefer me to be quiet, then?”

“No!” Hathor exclaimed, both to hear those mellifluous tones again and to banish the notion of _giving orders_. “No, my lord. I… I just thought I had it planned. It always happens like that. That you never… I didn’t want to….”

He was justifying himself to his own subconscious and it felt silly, so he stopped.

“But you know that. Because you – I imagined you….”

“Captain.” The primarch was regarding him gravely. “Do you have any idea of the penalty for trying to convince a superior officer that he is a figment of your imagination?”

Hathor’s mouth dropped open, but no sound came out on the first try.

“I’m dreaming….”

“I’m aware of that. So am I.” He stroked one of the cushions with a slender hand, obviously feeling it as sturdily as Hathor saw it. “And I have to say, this place you’ve made is impressive. Very comfortable.”

“How….”

“Magnus is helping me. I wouldn’t put it past him to be watching as well, but I suppose that’s acceptable.” A shrug, divine in its nonchalance, another thing that marked him out as _here_ and _present_. “My physical body is on the _Pride of the Emperor_ , along with his. We thought that this might help you with your… distraction.”

“It will,” Hathor blurted out, then reddened and added, “and I’m very grateful, my lord, that you allow me this liberty.”

“Not at all, Hathor. I’m always open to new experiences – and you always were such a courteous guest. I told Magnus how tempted I was to keep you, to forbid you to return to your legion and have you permanently by my side. But you must have missed your brothers.”

“And now I miss you.”

“You’ve traded one for another.” A light touch trailed down his face to his chest and Hathor shivered with delight, bringing a smile to the primarch’s face. This was real – imagined-real, but still happening before him in a world that was as familiar to his mind as the physical one. “Now, why don’t you show me what you’ve been dreaming about all this time….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is dedicated to Sirithy, and that whole conversation we had about how Hathor Maat's purity seal is in some obscure language/dialect nobody can read, and he tells people it means 'courage and honour' or something and not the Chemosan equivalent of 'voulez-vous couchez avec moi' (like one of those Chinese-character tattoos that says 'chicken noodle soup').


End file.
